Drop on demand (DOD) piezo printheads are utilized widely to print on a variety of substrates. Piezo printheads are favored versus thermal inkjet printheads when using jetable materials such as UV curable printing inks whose higher viscosity or chemical composition prohibits the use of thermal inkjet for their DOD application. Thermal inkjet printheads use a heating element actuator in an ink-filled chamber to vaporize ink and create a bubble which forces an ink drop out of a nozzle. Thus, the jetable materials suitable for use in thermal inkjet printheads are limited to those whose formulations can withstand boiling temperature without mechanical or chemical degradation. Piezo printheads can accommodate a wider selection of jetable materials, however, as they use a piezoelectric material actuator on a membrane of an ink-filled chamber to generate a pressure pulse which forces a drop of ink out of the nozzle.
However, one problem that piezoelectric printheads have is mechanical crosstalk between adjacent nozzles. When the membrane in a given nozzle moves up, the membranes in adjacent nozzles move down by some lesser distance. This affects the operation of the adjacent nozzles negatively. Ideally, when a given nozzle is actuated (moving its membrane up or down), the membranes in adjacent nozzles would not be affected. Rather, membranes in adjacent nozzles would be completely independent and would not move detectably when neighboring nozzles are actuated and their membranes move.